


Hope

by zahrabane



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: 1x05 Coda, Coda, M/M, throwback to season 1, where it all began
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-22 07:00:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17658149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zahrabane/pseuds/zahrabane
Summary: Alec had a bad day. Then he remembered Magnus Bane called him.





	Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [Alistoney](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alistoney/pseuds/alistoney) for giving this a good read over and thank you x1000 to [CryptidBane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Impetus/pseuds/CryptidBane) for organizing this amazing 3B countdown!

Alec’s head hurt. He stalked towards the training room, Jace’s words still ringing through his ears.

_ I trusted you.  _

Clary’s face, belligerent, swam beneath his eyelids as he blinked, and the events that occured in the few short days since he’d known her spun around his brain. He felt the disappointment, the shame, the fear; everything he’d been taught to feel at the slightest notion of failure. Eventually, he could feel only one thing: an exhaustion settling deep inside his bones. 

He walked past the training room, almost letting his posture drop for the first time in his life. He marched up the stone steps of the Institute, the ones in the back where there was no stained glass and the light filtered through uninterrupted save for the particles of dust and pollution that were constantly settling into the fabric of New York City. 

He felt himself longing for the bright clean air of Alicante as he made his way up the never-ending staircase. He always knew a mundane city could never be the true home of a Shadowhunter, especially not one who craved the tradition and conviction of Nephilim life the way he did. Though he had spent his whole life in New York, the city spun to fast around him for the semblance of control he craved. Nothing ever pulled him down here, kept him rooted and grounded and steady. 

After spending the day trudging through alleyways and an artist’s loft in Brooklyn, the clean air of Alicante seemed but a dream. A clean, orderly, dream. 

He reached the landing, just as he thought his legs might give out. It was strange - he hadn’t actually done that much fighting today, he shouldn’t be feeling this level of tired. His thoughts were broken by a harsh voice hissing its way through a crack beneath the door to his right. 

“Don’t tell me what Isabelle is and isn’t capable of handling, Robert. Do you really think her behaviour with those downworlders won’t disgrace us even further?”

His mother. 

Alec felt anger rising in him, but it gave him no energy. He had been frustrated too many times today to feel much of anything. He slipped inside his bedroom, closing his door before his mother could emerge and see him. 

He flopped on his bed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been alone when he wasn’t asleep, much less alone in his bedroom with nothing to do. 

He should be out helping find Clary. He should, at the very least, be filing a report. He should, he should…

He pulled out his phone, unlocking it and wondering if it was early enough to justify going to sleep. 

It was not. 

He sighed, flipping through the screens of apps, vaguely wondering what half of them did. Maybe he just needed some mundane entertainment - a distraction, anything. What did mundanes do on these devices for all the time they spent staring at them, anyway?

He opened up the phone app, one of the few he really ever used. But he had no one to call. Jace was furious with him, an unwelcome reminder that washed through his parabatai bond. Izzy was out with Jace. He really didn’t talk on the phone with anyone else…

He blinked, staring at his call history. 

Except he had, he had talked to someone else on the phone today. 

And that someone was Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn. 

Alec felt something surge up inside him, breaking through all the weight of the past few days that made his bones feel heavy on the bed.

Magnus Bane had called  _ him. _

And he had asked him to go for  _ a drink. _

This day was now an absolute emotional rollercoaster as he found himself grinning at his phone. 

Did that mean Magnus… liked him?

For some strange reason, he felt the urge to dial his sister’s number. To talk about Magnus, the way his hair fell perfectly, the way his eyes gleaned, the way his words held their own sort of magic….

If anyone would understand, Izzy would. He had heard her gush about boys more times than he cared to remember. And maybe she could tell him what this all  _ meant _ ….

But he knew what it meant, didn’t he?

He’d known from the moment Jace started coming home talking about girls and he felt an odd twinge of jealousy. He wondered now, vaguely, whether that was true jealousy over Jace’s affections, or jealousy over Jace’s ability to be so perfectly normal - so effortlessly the golden boy in every way. 

And he’d known again the moment he’d laid eyes on Magnus. The knowledge came and went, lost in the routine of everyday life. But Magnus was like a flare, calling to him, lighting him up until he was smiling for the first time in what felt like forever. 

There was nothing to do though, with all this light Magnus poured into his life. Perhaps he could go for one drink. He couldn’t get too close, of course, but if he could have just one evening of feeling this lightness, of spending even one hour with Magnus…

Now he was full on grinning, the temptation to call Magnus back hovering in his fingertips. The most infamous Warlock he’d ever met had asked him for a drink.

If only Jace hadn’t stuck him with Clary…. 

The annoyance disappeared from his brain before he could dwell on it again. How could he be annoyed when  _ Magnus Bane  _ wanted to get a drink with  _ him _ , out of all the other people in the city? He glanced at his phone one last time, sighing. Reasonably he know there was no happy ending for him; but he couldn’t keep himself from smiling. Something about Magnus seemed  _ hopeful _ . Something about him spoke to the kind of life Alec could lead. 

He was too tired to go anywhere today, but he was not too tired to dream. 

He closed his eyes, the image of Magnus ingrained on his lids. For once he let himself ride out this high, the endless routine of duty and gore and repression falling away as if it had never weighed him down. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can come scream at me on tumblr as [zahrabane](http://zahrabane.tumblr.com/%22%3E) or on twitter as [@zahra_bane](https://twitter.com/zahra_bane) :)


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